Things I love about this Southwest Tortellini Pasta Salad:

It can be made ahead of time.

Cook the tortellini, chop the veggies and make the dressing on the side. Then combine everything right before you’re about to eat! It’s already a really quick dish to prepare, but doing those things ahead of time make it the perfect side dish to dinner, BBQ’s or any type of event where you have to bring a side dish to share.

Refrigerated cheese tortellini are the best kind!

Although the dry packaged kind will work for this recipe, I just don’t think they taste as good. The refrigerated kind only take a few minutes to cook once your water is boiling and they’re cute little bite-size bites of cheesy bliss 🙂

It’s a great healthy meal your family will love!

This is one of the healthier meals I like to feed my kids. They LOVE it, and I love that it’s loaded with veggies and good protein from the beans. The dressing is pretty mild–definitely not too spicy for my family. If you do want to add a little “heat” to the dressing you could add some Valentina hot sauce.